Caught some fish tonight!

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
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I went to the Brookville lake tailwaters in Indiana tonight. This is only the 2nd time I’ve fished these waters. The first time I didn’t do very well, hooked one but it got off before I could get a hand on it.

Tonight I did better :smiley:

I only caught 2, but they were nice trout. One was a rainbow about 12" and the second was another rainbow that came in at 16". That was the largest trout I’ve ever caught. It put up a great fight, jumped three or four times, made one fairly long run but didn’t get into the drag. However, it was still a fun fish to catch. It was very pretty with red on the gills and dark colors and a nice pink strip down its side.

They were hitting dry flies just before dark. Unfortunately, I ran out of light and didn’t want to walk through the river after dark. I got back up pretty close to where I was parked and made a few more half hearted casts and got a couple more strikes, but it was so dark I couldn’t really see my fly and missed the hits.

Bottom-line, a pretty good day on the river.

Jeff

2

Way to go, man. I am jealous. Most of our rivers out here in Montana are too hot to fish. Catch some for me.

3

Of all things, I was catching them on a #12 Royal Coachman. There was a caddis hatch going on and they were about a size 20 or 18. I had a bunch of small flies in the 18-20 size but couldn’t buy a strike on them. I watched several fish gulp down the real flies, but they were not at all interested in the ones I was throwing. Out of frustration, and because it was getting too dark to see how to get 6X tippet through the eyes of those little hooks (like threading a needle), I tied on a big royal coachman. I was not really expecting anything to hit it but the first cast hooked the 12 incher. For about 6 or 7 casts, I got strikes or rises and then hooked the big boy. Then it got dark. I should have tied the coachman on earlier. I may have caught more. :smiley:

Oh well, time to settle down and go to bed.

Jeff

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Jeff,
Try a Hopper pattern (Dave’s Hopper), a Muddler Minnow or a large Stimulator.
If the fish won’t hit your hatch fly, then it’s time to provoke a strike.
Doug

5

thats very cool.
i am definately jealous.
wierd how some of those attractor flies always work during a hatch of something.

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Good show Jeff! The big boy, your biggest bow so far - do you think this happened because you were throwing the bigger fly?

What we often do here in NZ is sit and wait whilst the evening rise happens, refraining from throwing our flies to these fish until it becomes full dark. What we find is that as darkness falls, the smaller fish along the edges are often displaced by the larger ones, coming to feed in close under the cover of darkness. If we thrash the water to foam beforehand, these larger fish will often stay closer to mid stream. These fish are always on the lookout for a big mouthful, so we often use larger flies to bring them up.

You seem to have hit right on this, and have been rewarded well!

Good to hear mate!

Chris

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do you think this happened because you were throwing the bigger fly?

I honestly do not know. It could have been a bigger fly, or it may have just been something diffrerent than what they were eating. It may have looked like a big juicy piece of candy to them.

Jeff

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I’ll be interested to hear how you get on next time if you go to this fly again after dark. Save a peice of river to fish after darkness falls, and who nows, the next fish may again break the record!
Have fun mate

Chris

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Hey!

Good for you! Get any pictures?

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Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me. Wish I did because the river was very pretty last night too. The water temps below the dam was in the mid 50’s and the air temp was in the mid 80’s. As evening settled in, a nice fog was lifting off of the river and would have made for some interesting photos. So would the fish.

Jeff

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Hey Jeff,

That’s wild about the coachman…I guess they needed some visual stimuli to trigger a strike that matching the hatch didn’t provide. I have a couple in my flybox but to be honest they’ve never seen the water, but I may have to change that based on your luck.

At the last minute on Saturday night I got a “kitchen pass” and was out at Brookville on Sunday too…in early at 7:00am and left by 3:00pm. Were you there then? Where were you fishing?

I mainly fished the last pool in the park and then upper pool above the park. I caught 5 or 6 browns from this year’s hatch (one looked like an otter had taken a chunk out of it’s back!) with a lot of LDRs and had a heartbreak with large brown breaking off in the upper pool that took a black elk-hair caddis that I tossed under a tree where they were picking off bugs that dropped from the branches.

Glad you had a better experience fishing it this time around - and surprised that both your fish were rainbows. I know that they stocked rainbows in the past, but in the three times that I’ve been there I’ve only caught one 'bow.

I have also heard that Brookville fishes very good year-round so if you can give up football (or DVR it) there will be opportunities to go fish when most people will be glued to their sets.

Congrats again - hopefully I’ll bump into you at some point out on the water…

Jim

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in early at 7:00am and left by 3:00pm. Were you there then? Where were you fishing?

Jim,
I got my honey doo list done about 4:00pm on Sunday evening. It’s about an hour drive from my house to Brookville. I fished from about 5:30pm until it got too dark to see at around 9:15pm.

When you talk about the park, I’m not sure where that is. Where is it in relation to the Dam?

I parked up at the little park right at the base of the Dam. I walked down stream several hundred yards. I went udner the bridge, then there’s a ripple area, then a pool, and another ripple area and another fairly large pool (past some apartment buildings on the right side as you’re looking down stream). There seemed to be another large pool one more ripple downstream from where I was, but there were already 3 guys fishing it.

I walked through the weeds on the bank most of the way so I wouldn’t overly distrub the water. (Watch out, the bank of that stream is COVERED with Poision Ivy. Yes, I’m itching a little this afternoon). I sat on a rock at the outflow from the pool for about 20 minutes to watch the water and see what was going on, then started fishing my way back to the car.

There were a lot of fish swimming around and surfacing up in the area where the dam feeds the stream (where all the rocks are lining the bank). I didn’t even try them as I figured they were pretty well educated being that close to the parking lot and the fairly easy to fish rip rap banks.

Next time I go, I may waste a few minutes tossing some streamers at the fish up there. There were a couple pigs swimming around up there.

Oh, almost forgot, I did toss some nymphs at a couple carp I saw swimming in the river, but couldn’t get one interested.

I did talk with one guy up there who had been spin fishing earlier in the day and said he had good luck but had not had much success on his fly rod when we were chatting.

Jim, hopefully we’ll meet up some day. I drive a red Pontiac G6 Convertible (looks like a coupe with the retractable hard top) with KY plates.

Jeff

Jeff

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Jeff,

Glad to hear of your success at BV. I’d have replied sooner but I 've been on vaction with the family and just returned on Sunday. I’m new to fishing there myself and I’ve found smaller is better too. While I haven’t fished anything as small as Jim has recommended I’ve been working the areas over with size 16 and 18 klinkhammers with pretty good success.

The Community Park Jim is refering to is just down stream from the lowest pool you described. If you go down the road past the concrete plant you’ll drive into the park area. It’s another great place to park and access the stream.

I hadn’t though of Coachmans or other attractors but it might be a case of giving them something they haven’t seen before or seen much of. I think there are many ways to be successful at BV. I’m going over on Thursday for the day maybe we’ll cross paths. I tend to park at the rec area below the dam and walk downstream and fish my way back up.

Hope you’re poison ivys not too bad. Good luck over there.

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OH MAN I wish I could join you on Thursday. My work schedule’s completely open right now, but I can’t take two consecutive Thursday’s off…otherwise I’d probably have every day available to fish BTW.

At some point I’m going to head over there with the guy (Steve Waak) that owns the new fly shop in Milford. He’s a hell of a nice guy and did a lot of guiding out in Colorado. It’s fun swapping western river stories with him. He has Monday’s off so that’s the only day he can get away.

Anyway - he’s spent some time fishing tailwater streams/rivers out west so he’s pretty familiar with the way a tailwater stream differs from regular streams/rivers. It’ll be good to pick his brain about it.

FYI - The shop is A&N Outfitters http://www.a-noutfitters.com/asp/index.asp and he has a pretty nice collection of tieing supplies and everything else a good local shop should have, not to mention more than happy to share his secrets as well. If you haven’t been there it’s worth a visit…right on the main street of Milford next to the toy train shop.

One thing not to overlook when fishing BTW - whenever there are trees that overhang the water (especially in the pool just up from the park) side arm some terrestrials or something bushy in there…the fish are just holding and waiting for the bugs to drop off the trees into the water. Its a lot of fun seeing them come up and just nail the fly.

JOE - have a great day fishing over there and I still want to hook up and fish BTW with you and Jeff sometime soon. Maybe we can have our own Ohio Fish-In in Indiana!

Take care…

Jim

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Jeff,

Do yourself a favor and buy a a good LED headlamp so you can see what’s going on at dusk and after dark, especially if you need to change flies (I wear mine around my neck so the light does not get in my eyes). Mine has multiple settings of intensity, including a setting with red LEDs. I’ve heard that using the red will not spook fish that are in close proximity to you. As always, it’s best to fish with a buddy at all times, and especially after dark when the Goonies come out. :lol:

Good Luck!

Joe

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Folks,
Thanks for the replies. Yes, the Poision Ivy is getting better. Still itches, but not too bad and it’s not spreading. Probably being in the water helped wash some of the oil off my skin so it didn’t really set in too badly. There is a lot of the stuff growing alongise that river though.

LED - yes. I am getting a clip on and some magnifying glasses. My 46 year old eyes are not as young as they used to be and seeing those 6X tippets and tiny hook eyes is a chore (even with bifocals). Magnifying glasses and light are the key.

Wish I could get off during the week and head up there! I just can’t get off much in the middle of the week. Like someone else said, if I take too many mid week days off, I may end up having a lot of time to fish (but no money to buy gas and gear).

A lot of times I fish wiht my son. He has not been to BTW with me yet. He’s 12 and even more of a novice than I am. Ag 12, we need to catch a few fish to keep him interested so I’m going up solo a few times just to get the lay of the land, how to fish the stream, etc so that when I bring him up, we’ll have a reasonable chance of getting some strikes and maybe even catch a fish or two to keep it interesting.

So far, I’ve been parking at the Rec area and heading downstream and fishing my way back to the car. I may have to try the park next time.

Do you all fish up from the park, or head down stream and fish your way back to the park?

Seriously guys, if you ever see a red Pontiac G6 2 door up there and a 46 year old guy standing in the middle of the river with a stupid look on his face, it’s probably me. Stop by and chat and fish for a while, I wouldn’t mind the company.

If you speak to me and I don’t answer, just say it louder. My hearing is as bad as my vision. I’m not ignoring you, I just didn’t hear you.

Jeff

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Hey Jeff,

I usually park in the park off the road as soon as the road starts to parallel the stream and work up from there. There are some great riffles and then one BIIIIG pool up from there. Nice and wide with lots of fish.

Keep at your son - I wish that I had someone to take me fly fishing when I was his age! There’s a lot of activity with midges right now - but as the water warms up - that will taper off and we’ll start seeing more caddis hatches. Or so says Steve at A&N Outfitters in Milford and I have to believe him!

But that will mean for more dry fly opportunities and that just might be the thing that your son needs to really keep him hooked!

Take care - hope to bump into you on the stream sometime soon. I will definitely start hitting it on weekends once the weather cools and there are fewer FF’ers trying for the same stretch of water.

Take care - Jim

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POISON IVY CAN BE CURED! you need some teething medicine, like for babies. put this on and the itching and swelling will go away. works on bug bites too. i never heard of anyone having a bad reaction–it’s for in babies’ mouths, right?–but it is an Old Wives Remedy so you are hereby warned. i keep those little bottles in the vest, the car, the kitchen, bathroom, travel kit…bugs love me.

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Jeff,
Congratulations on your success with the trout! Watch out for that poison ivy but if you do get into it here is a great stream side cure for it:

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/hydro/jewelwed.htm

Works great on insect bites too.

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Jeff,

Glad to hear the PI is improving. I’m relatively immune (which means I get it but just a tiny spot or two).

Don’t be too jealous of my ability to get to fish during the week. The down side is I work weekends. Now that’s not a complaint just an occupational reality. I work for the Corps (same folks that run the dam over at BV) just at another lake. We’re short staffed so I get to work “extra” weekends and holidays this year. Got to be around when the customers are there! My ranger got promoted to the manager?s job at BV, lucky SOB!

Anyway, I’ll keep an eye peeled for your car. I like the upper section but I’m going to explore some more water. I’ve still got several sections that I need to fish. I checked the water temp before I left work and it was still on 55, hard to believe for the first of August.

Good luck over there! Tight lines!